The first 30 customers at Fantagraphics Bookstore's 6th anniversary party on Saturday will receive a free copy of the Before Love and Rockets minicomic, featuring Jaime's pre-Love & Rockets L.A. punk posters and an early Inez story by Gilbert. Have the Bros sign this and other rare merchandise we've uncovered for this momentous occasion, including affordable Love and Rockets posters, prints, tee shirts, and more - much of which has been unavailable for many years. See you all this Saturday at 6:00 PM.

Thursday, December 6th

• Seattle, WA: It's your last chance to see our exhibit for The Last Vispo Anthology: Visual Poetry 1998-2008 at the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery! Prints are a ridiculously-cheap $25 each! (more info)  

Friday, December 7th

• Seattle, WA: Dutch artist Femke Hiemstra debuts her latest collection "Let the Devil Wear Black" at Roq La Rue, with Blab #18 cover artist Ryan Heshka! (more info)   

Saturday, December 8th

• Seattle, WA: The Love and Rockets 30th Anniversary Celebration comes to the Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery with guests of honor Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez! We'll also have a special musical performance from Geneviève Castrée! (more info)   

 • Los Angeles, CA: Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd present the Eighth Annual Giant Robot Post-It Show, with work from Andrice Arp, Gabrielle Bell, Lilli Carre, Martin Cendreda, John Cuneo, Eleanor Davis, Renee French, Johnny Ryan, Malachi Ward, and Steven Weissman! (more info)   

The luckiest Powerball ticket of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Drawn's John Martz is ready for Heads or Tails. "Lilli Carré is one of those cartoonists who has been putting out plenty of great work. . . She’s a master of short stories, so this collection is a welcome addition to my bookshelves. Rainbow Moment, a smartly-crafted story of nested memories all told in different colour palettes is the stand out work, and worth the price of admission alone."

• Review: John Martz of Drawn looks at Barack Hussein Obama. "Steven Weissman has been posting his odd comic strip, named after and starring a Bizarro-Universe version of Barack Hussein Obama . . . and it quickly became one of my favourite comics online. . . Obama’s re-election, if anything, hopefully means another four years of this strange and delightful oddity."

• Plug: On Librairie D + Q, staffer Helen lists Wandering Son Vol. 3 in her picks for 2012. "Shimura Takako treats her two young, trans* protagonists (or an approximation of "trans*", in the context of Japanese gender politics and identities) with gentleness, but does not fall into the trap of painting an overly rosy picture of their experience . . . while [they navigate] the general difficulties and anxieties of tween-hood."

• Plug: Maria Popova creates her 10 Best Design Books of 2012 and reiterates her love of Significant Objects on Brain Pickings. " 'The universe is made of stories, not atoms,' poet Muriel Rukeyser famously remarked. Hardly anyone can back this bombastic proclamation with more empirical conviction than [editors] Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn."

• Review: Geekrocker looks at Gabriella Giandelli's Interiorae. Wee Claire says, "Giandelli's pale ghostly illustrations reflect the sombre, mysterious mood Giandelli skilfully creates. This isn't a story about great feats of human strength or otherworldly adventures, this is a simple tale about real human lives.. . . Interiorae shows us that if we look hard enough, there's a little bit of magic waiting around every darkened corner."

• Plug: Chris Butcher recommends you pre-order 7 Miles a Second. "James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook do a phenomenal job at bringing [writer David Wojnarowicz's] story to life, and this is a vital and important piece of gay history that had been denied to me as a gay teen, and which has been out of print for far too long."

• Review: Avid fan and writer Benjamin Herman rereads Love and Rockets, while making some great conclusions on the way. "[Duck Feet] was my first real exposure to Gilbert’s stories of Luba and the denizens of the Latin American village of Palomar, and I really enjoyed it.  Gilbert’s writing was full of character, containing a distinctive voice, his artwork imbued with real atmosphere. . . Gilbert expertly crafted an almost epic tale that spans across a generation, giving us very real, flawed, dysfunctional characters." For Jaime's work "one of the key elements of Jaime’s stories is the process of growing up, of maturing, the struggle to become an adult and leave childhood behind.  Maggie and Hopey both have to face the choice of pursuing long-term adult relationships or continuing teenage flings."

Celebrate 30 Years of Love and Rockets with Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez at Fantagraphics Bookstore on Saturday, December 8!

When Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez created the first issue of Love and Rockets three decades ago, they foreshadowed the diverse American society we enjoy today. Their work wasn’t overtly political. They simply reflected their cultural environment. In doing so, they profoundly influenced popular culture on a global scale. Celebrate the illustrious legacy of these amazing artists on Saturday, December 8 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. This festive evening of art, comix, and music marks the 6th anniversary of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery .

The Love and Rockets comic book series helped lay the foundation for the alternative comix movement. Brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez combined elements of their Southern California punk counterculture with accessible pop motifs, breathing new life into the moribund underground comix form. Their work found a receptive audience among the adventurous youth culture of the period. The Hernandez brothers’ efforts soon came to the attention fledgling comic book publisher Fantagraphics Books, helping launch that storied enterprise. The relationship remains strong 30 years later, as Fantagraphics and Love and Rockets help shape the rising influence of alternative comix. The Love and Rockets franchise has grown to include countless comix collections and continues as an annual edition that complements the solo projects of the sibling artists.

The festivities on Saturday, December 8 include an exhibition of Love and Rockets art and artifacts chosen by Fantagraphics editorial associate Kristy Valenti and bookstore curator Larry Reid. A signed commemorative silkscreen print will be produced for the occasion. Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez will be available to sign a wide variety of comix, anthologies, and related merchandise. Accomplished cartoonist, visual artist and musician Geneviève Castrée will provide entertainment with her music project Ô Paon – helping us celebrate 30 years of Love and Rockets as well as six wonderful years of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery. This event coincides with a lively holiday edition of the Georgetown Art Attack, featuring visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic neighborhood, including wandering carolers from Choir of the Sound.

Listing Information:

30 Years of Love and Rockets with Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez
Exhibition and book signing, with music by Ô Paon
Saturday, December 8, 6:00 to 9:00 PM
Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
1201 S. Vale Street, Seattle. 206.658.0110
Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM

The spendiest debit card of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Interview: Robot 6 and Tim O'Shea interview Chris Wright about Blacklung. Wright answers, "the characters in Blacklung, particularly Brahm, are wrapped up in these hellish cycles, of destruction, and grief, and that quote seemed, not so much to sum up the philosophical point of view of the book, but to act dynamically with it, and become part of it’s dialogue. How responsible are we really for our own fates, and how much of what we become, and what we experience is beyond our influence."

• Review: Anime News Network looks at The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. Jason Thompson writes " . . this story isn't about same-sex attraction and social prejudice as much as it's about love itself; at heart, this is a manga about spiritual love between two souls. . . The Art Nouveau artwork and the prose-poetry that accompanies it, the dream sequences, the images of ghosts and doubles, all add to a feeling of unreality. Hagio's work often approaches surrealism. . ."

• Review: On Manga Worth Reading, Johanna Draper Carlson reviews The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. "It all felt strange and foreign. . . but I kept turning pages, hoping for these children to find more settled hearts. The question of how much responsibility someone else’s feelings for you place on you is a universal one, never to be answered, but I enjoyed reading about these young men dealing with the problem and its consequences."

• Plug: MTV Geek puts The Heart of Thomas on its Manga Lovers List. Brigid Alverson says "one of the first boys-love manga and a masterpiece in its own right. Translated by manga scholar (and friend of Moto Hagio) Matt Thorn, this manga is complete in one single, oversized volume." Stumptown Trade Review adds "Fantagraphics is not normally known for publishing manga. So, when they do choose to publish a manga graphic novel it is worth noting. The Heart of Thomas is no exception."

• Review: Experiments in Manga writes a thankful note for Shimura Takako's Wandering Son series, "I needed a story like Wandering Son growing up. I've only recently realized how crucial and important it is for young people to have characters that they can personally identify with in the media that they watch, read, and play . . Ultimately Wandering Son isn't so much about issues [of sexuality and gender identity] as it is about people."

• Review: Castle Waiting #18 by Linda Medley is reviewed on Comic Book Resources. Kelly Thompson states, issue #18 "ties up that volume beautifully and puts the characters exactly where they need to be both for closure purposes and as a set up for future stories to continue at any time. . . Medley approaches these characters and ideas with a boundless creativity that never feels forced, instead there is an effortless element to how her stories unfold, natural and without true purpose."

• Interview: The Quietus interviews Joost Swarte on his new book, Is That All There Is? collecting his life in comics so far. Aug Stone states,"these are works to behold, to marvel at their beauty and composition, all presented with a good sense of fun. The backgrounds brim with amusing and interesting details, the stories themselves bursting with mishaps, mayhem, music, and sex."

• Review: Broken Pencil Magazine released their printed review of Is That All There Is? by Joost Swarte. "Taking visual cues from Tintin creator Hergé’s clean line style, Swarte added a healthy dose of 70s-style countercultural mores and boasted an incredible capacity for experimentation and playfulness that went above and beyond many of his peers," to quote Matthew Daley.

• Review: Comics Worth Reading reviews Ralph Azham Book 1: "Why Would You Lie to Someone You Love" by Lewis Trondheim. "What’s not typical, and what made this most interesting to me, is how no one is particularly trustworthy. There isn’t a lot of obvious Good and Evil. . . Everyone’s lying, in some form, and discovering those secrets makes up much of this book," writes Johanna Draper Carlson.

• Plug: In an nice history lesson and review of The Complege Pogo: Vol. 1-2 by Walt Kelly in the Washington Times, Michael Taube states, "Pogo was intellectual, thought-provoking, cynical, controversial and downright brilliant. It broke barriers and didn't fit into societal norms. You didn't even have to agree with Kelly's politics to respect his genius as an artist and a commentator."

• Review: Matthew Daley reviews Athos in America by Jason for Broken Pencil Magazine. He writes, "these stories can tread on some pretty dark, even bleak ground, and in the hands of a different artist, it could wear the reader down. However, the simple art and bright flat colours and the aforementioned deadpan characters make the bleakness a bit easier to take."

• Plug: A much looked-forward to release on Heroes Online is Tony Millionaire's Green Eggs and Maakies. Seth Peagler says, "Millionaire’s highly regarded for the way he combines classic strip cartooning (and fine line work) with subversive humor."

• Review: Rob Clough of High-Low profiles Paul Hornschemeier and his book Let Us Be Perfectly Clear. "There's a certain grimness and melancholy that's dominated his major works, but I always found his humorous pieces to be every bit as involving. . . What I like most about [Let Us Be] is its intricacy and the way it yo-yos back and forth between emotional distance and the immediacy of Dennis' unbalanced mind. . . I'll be curious to see what his newer comics will look like, and if we're due for another round of unbridled innovation from Hornschemeier."

• Review: Popeye by E.C. Seger gets the twice over by Roger Ash on Westfield Comics Blog. "I’ve only read the first two volumes so far, and they are fantastic and eye opening. This is a very different Popeye that what I knew. He’s still gruff and lovable, but spinach has nothing to do with his strength. . . He routinely survives stabbings and shootings and is a terror in the boxing ring. . ." and "Because of the size of the book, a whole week’s worth of dailies fit on one page. Due to their age, the quality of the reproduction of the strips can vary, but in general they look very nice."

• Plug: Comics Alliance's Best Art This Week compiled by Andy Khouri includes a little Richard Sala and Jaime Hernandez! Way to go, team.

• Plug: Ellen Forney touches on her time as a creator for Fantagraphics in a Publishers Weekly article by Grace Bello.

Now that the mess of Halloween is swept under the rug and Thanksgiving is over or has turned into subcutaneous fat around your middle-section, we can get back to what is really important: egg nog and books to buy for your loved ones be they the birthday-celebrating Sagittarius or Capricorn in your life or for an annual wintertime holiday. Many of our books have been featured on holiday gift guides and we even have thematic releases coming out just in time for the holidays. So peruse while you finish up your holiday shopping lists. (And remember our CYBER MONDAY sale is going on RIGHT NOW for 30% off 2012 titles and more)

For the monster in you and that book to connect generations of family members, look no further than SPACEHAWK by Basil Wolverton. Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing believes "what you read it for is the character design, that amazing Wolverton grotesque that is as unmistakable as it is unforgettable. I mean to say, this guy could really draw monsters [in this] weighty tome that almost strobes with awesome."

For the completist and nostalgic fan, Publishers Weekly gift guide highlights the first three volumes of Krazy & Ignatz: Complete Sunday Strips 1916-1924 by George Herriman (for a whopping $95). PW states "One of the most admired and influential comic strips of all time, Krazy & Ignatz is collected in Krazy & Ignatz: Complete Sunday Strips 1916–1924, which contains the first nine years of George Herriman’s masterpiece into one (of three) handsome tomes." 

For more strip and comic book archival collections Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter suggests Walt Kelly's Pogo Vol. 1-2 Box Set. "I love the early Pogo work best of all the Pogo work, and these volumes are attractive in a way that's extremely difficult to guarantee with a post-World War 2 offering. They were cramming the strips into papers by then, making tear sheets and originals an even greater premium than is usual." A little history with your recommendation.

Speaking of history Publishers Weekly calls it a 'good yarn,' but The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver is also for 'that person who loved the film Lincoln' as Comic Book Resources puts it. "This is an angle of Lincoln that rarely gets seen, and Van Sciver's strong plotting and detailed artwork make this an engaging and easily accessible read to any reader."

In the mood for more biographies or memoirs? Publishers Weekly suggests No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall. The NY TIMES also featured this "sampling of comic books and comic strips featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes and characters has strong language and sexual situations, but a lot of laughs too. It is a wonderful toe dip into the genre," states George Gene Gustines.

"For the person who reads John Hodgman" cartoonist, quippest and sharpest tack on the internet block Michael Kupperman is the man for you. Rob McMonigal at Panel Patter continues, "He's the author of my favorite book of 2011, Mark Twain's Autobiography 1910-2010, as well as the Tales Designed to Thrizzle anthology series. His work features outrageous satire . . . sending Twain off on wacky hijinks with Albert Einstein. Nothing is sacred and everything is skewered by Kupperman, who is a perfect fit for the lovers of Daily Show-like comedy.

For the person who enjoys process over narrative the "punk icon Gary Panter’s angular world of neon brutalism" Dal Tokyo is the perfect gift for the 'Visual Splendor', says Publishers Weekly.

Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter recommends comics for people WHO ALREADY LIKE THEM. #1 on his list is anything by The Hernandez Brothers. "They made some of the very best comics the year that Love and Rockets began; they made some of the very best comics this year." Start from the beginning with Gilbert's Palomar Series in the book Heartbreak Soup or with Jaime's Locas Series starting with Maggie the Mechanic. Is your loved one a huge fan? Get the latest book, Love and Rockets: New Stories #5.

But wait! (There's more) We also have blue spruce trimmed books for your holiday and year-long enjoyment. First up is the perfect stocking stuffer Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking, this adorable little package collects two of Charles M. Schulz's best "extras" from the 1960s: two Christmas-themed stories written and drawn for national magazines are FINALLY collected in book form. The Comics Reporter says, "There aren't a whole lot of Charles Schulz-related items that have yet to be published; this holiday-related book is one of the few hold-outs." Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking was also featured on The LA Times Gifts for Under $25 "Charlie, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus, Schroeder, Frieda, Violet, Shermy and Sally all make appearances, and the book also includes a pocket-sized biography of Schulz." Created in the classic square style of Charlie Brown small book collections, this book is sure to warm your hearts without the need of a glowing fire or mug of mulled cider.

Walt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown by Carl Barks is the third book in our Carl Barks Library which chronologically prints stories from this master. "A Christmas for Shacktown" is a rare 32-pager that stays within the confines of Duckburg, featuring a storyline in which the Duck family works hard to raise money to throw a Christmas party for the poor children of the city’s slums (depicted by Barks with surprisingly Dickensian grittiness). The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon states, "I used to love the unabashed sentimentalism that saturates a story like this one, at least in the initial pages."

The rest of the book is also full of GOLD and not necessarily snow-covered. 240 pages in full-color glory make this a must-have no matter what the season. Featured on The LA Times Gifts for Under $50 "Fantagraphics has been reprinting Carl Barks’ classic Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge work, and this third volume focuses on Barks’ peak period in the early 1950s."

Finally, the second book of Ernie Bushmiller's famous strip Nancy is out for pre-order. Nancy Likes Christmas: Complete Dailies 1946-1948 is three more punny years of the fabulous life of an odd looking little girl. Order through us and you'll receive an FBI mini comic to throw in that stocking over the fireplace (be it real or the Netflix fireplace) as well. Spurgeon again, "it sounds good. I'm pro-Nancy and everything." It's kinda like being pro-education. We all agree it's a good thang.

Order now for the holidays! We even have the you must buy by this date to ensure proper delivery and minimum tears.

Viva Las Vegas! 2012 ain't over yet, and we're not done celebrating the 30th Anniversary of Love and Rockets!

Join Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez in Sin City on Saturday, December 1st at Alternate Reality Comics. The signing runs from 3:00 to 6:00 PM, and don't take a gamble and get there late -- they'll have a special, limited edition commemorative print for sale for only $15.00! (Limited to only 75 copies!)

As if that weren't inticing enough, all Love and Rockets comics and graphic novels will be 20% off! Complete your collections! Buy holiday gifts for your stupid friends who don't already own these landmark comics!

Complimentary beverages and snacks will be served. Alternate Reality Comics is located at 4110 S. Maryland Pkwy. #8, at the Maryland Pkwy & Flamingo intersection, behind Long John Silver's, arrr.

The strongest umbrella in the wind of Online Commentaries & Diversions: 

• Review: Paul Constant of The Stranger looks at The Last Vispo: Visual Poetry 1998-2008, edited by Nico Vassilakis and Crag Hill. "As an art book, it demands hours of investigation. . . For those linguistic pioneers looking to find the future of fiction, this could be one of the most informative poetry anthologies to be published in the new millennium."

• Review: NPR's My Guilty Pleasure looks at the Jacques Tardi graphics novels of Adèle Blanc-Sec who is "young writer with the brains of Sherlock Holmes, the body of Angelina Jolie and the stoic fortitude of the Marlboro Man." Rosecrans Baldwin states, "The books are part adventure comic, part hardboiled fiction. They're terrific whodunits that conjure up all the precise atmospheric detail of, say, a Georges Simenon novel, but with twice the plot."

• Review: The Crackle of the Frost makes NPR's Graphic Novels that Fell Under the Radar of 2012 list. Glen Weldon states, "it's Mattotti's breathtakingly vivid paintings, pulsating with the mysterious poetry of unsettling dreams, that add a welcome and indelible splash of Kafka and Murakami."

• Review: Blacklung by Chris Wright gets reviewed on Nerds of a Feather. Philippe Duhart says, "Wright’s genius is further evident in his ability to use these aberrant cartoonish characterizations to convey human emotion, particularly terror. Wright’s portrayal of violence is stark and chilling – despite or perhaps because of his singular style. . . Black Lung worked on all counts. Plus, pirates."

• Review (video): Kapow Comics down in Australia reviews Chris Wright's Blacklung. Al states "this is a complicated book with musings on philosophy, literature, mortality and especially, religion has a big focus." Sonya says, "Every single character changes in this story, their journey changes them . . . [Blacklung] prayed on my mind. It lingers with you."

• Review: Glen David Gold looks at Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons edited by Kelly Gerald in the LA Review of Books. In an attempt to see how the bread is made, Gold, "Cartooning was O'Connor's first artistic passion. . . . An article in the local paper and a pile of rejection slips from The New Yorker indicate how serious she was. . . not an early blush of Flannery the fiction writer at work. But I'd still recommend it to the curious. Come at it without expecting same genius, but look at it because it's an extreme close up of biography."

• Review: Publishers Weekly looks at Jack Jackson's Los Tejanos and Lost Causes. "Comics’ current vogue for nonfiction was pioneered in these two works from the late underground comix founding father Jackson, who died in 2006. Jackson brought an R. Crumb–style crosshatching and love of facial grotesquery to these two densely researched historical graphic novels."

• Plug: Publishers Weekly and Ada Price show a sneak peak of The Heart of Thomas by Moto Hagio. Enjoy 14 pages of pure genius but don't forget to read each one right to left! We're talking manga here.

• Review: Rob Clough of The Comics Journal enjoys The Hypo by Noah Van Sciver."he’s made a fairly significant leap as both a draftsman and a storyteller in a relatively short period of time . . . Van Sciver’s greatest achievement in this book is his storytelling restraint. He lets his cross-hatching gets across the grime . . He wants to show the reader a different side of the Lincoln we grew up reading about in the history books, but also wants the reader to connect this younger man to the future president."

• Interview: Antonio Solina of Italian site Lo Spazio Bianco interviews with Jaime Hernandez .

• Commentary: On the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival, Coming Books are Burning in Hell talk non-stop about the mystery cartoonist that is Olivier Schrauwen of The Man Who Grew His Beard. BCGF coverge by The Beat (Heidi) describes the Olivier Schrauwen exhibit and Hannah Means-Shannon on the panels. Julia Pohl-Miranda from Drawn and Quarterly snaps a pic of me and former intern Anna hard at work (and pretty hot, you can see our sweat)

• Commentary: OSU Librarian, Caitlin McGurk, visited the Fantagraphics office and wrote up a nice report on us at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum blog!

 The first bit of frost of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review (video): Last Gasp's John Longhi reviews The Lost Art of Ah Pook by Malcom McNeill, a story originally created with William Burroughs. Longhi says, "I can see why Burroughs wanted to work with McNeill because he's one of the few guys who could capture the crazy wacked out details of his story writing. . . [It contains] all the wonderful social discord that made his writing fantastic."

• Review: Blacklung by Chris Wright gets high marks on Paste Magazine. Sean Edgar says, "Blacklung is a weird, compelling creation, telling a harrowing story of redemption and savagery through art that could initially pass as adorable before you get to the tongue necklaces. Highly recommended for those with strong stomachs." 

• Review: School Library Journal announces their BEST BOOKS OF 2012 and in the graphics novels section, Noah Van Sciver's The Hypo is listed. "Van Sciver makes Lincoln real by picturing one of the hardest times in his younger life. . . Dickens-style squalor and melodrama plus Austen-style romance, all done in gritty cross-hatching."

• Plug: The NY Times listed Flannery O'Connor: The Cartoons at the top of the Best Bathroom Reads of 2012. Dwight Garner believes "the prints collected here are droll and strange." Two of our favorite words to describe Fantagraphics-style creators such as Flannery O'Connor.

• Plug: Ken Plume mentions some of our books on his 2012 shopping guide: "Alongside the Peanuts collection, [Walt Disney's Donald Duck: A Christmas for Shacktown and Mickey Mouse Vol. 4 "House of the Seven Haunts"] reinforce the assessment that no one is doing archival comic collections as well as Fantagraphics."

• Plug: Drew Friedman is Boing-Boing-ed thanks to his amazing drawings, this time of John Severin from MAD/EC/Cracked comics. 

• Plug: Black and White adores Raymond Macherot's Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Murder By High Tide and Sibyl-Anne Vs. Ratticus . Miguel saw the English and French versions, "And I fell in love. . . [Macherot's] worlds are (usually) full of deceptively cute anthropomorphic animals, and in his best work, under that kids-friendly surface of pretty little animals there is real threat."

• Review: Roughly translated from Ediciones La Cupula, Jaime Hernandez's God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls is reviewed. "The excitement that overwhelms us after reading each of the installments of the saga of  [Ti-Girls] is directly proportional to its artistic excellence, his talent as a storyteller and human greatness that lives in his cartoons."

• Review: Lanacion reviews the writings and works of Alexander Theroux (Laura Warholic, Estonia and The Strange Case of Edward Gorey) and translated, barely, Matias Serra Bradford states, "If left as an untreated rarity, Alexander Theroux seems mysterious to the fantastic and impossible point of determining the trajectory of a particle and its position."

• Review: The Snipe News looks at Joe Sacco's Journalism collection. "the decade’s worth of stories. . . are most notable not from any kind of torn-from-the-headlines sensationalism but for the empathy the author brings to his subjects. . . . Sacco has a feel for displaced persons in general."

 The first rain-free (HA!) day of Online Commentaries & Diversions:

• Review: Robot 6 reviews The Cartoon Utopia by Ron Rege Jr. Chris Mautner writes "with Rege drawing science, new age spiritualism, the occult, astrology and Jungian archetypes to come up with a personal grand unification theory. There are no plots or characters in the book to speak of, instead Rege merely muses and illustrates his theories, which mainly have to on the interconnectedness of all living matter."

• Plugs: Best covers of the week by Andy Khouri on Comics Alliance. Ron Regé Jr's The Cartoon Utopia: "This cover really makes me smile, and maybe gives me a sense of four-color spiritual well-being. But cartoon utopia looks more outdoorsy than I expected."

• Review: Page 45 enjoys the gentle pages of The Cartoon Utopia. Stephen L. Holland states, "Regé is back with a spiritual manifesto and ode to creativity: a singular, secular vision delivered with all the fervour of a religious sermon. It’s a call not to arms but to peace and perception unshackled from the conditioning of ages, exhorting all to see new possibilities, infinite possibilities, so enabling one’s full potential to be realised in both senses of the word."

• Review: Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman is reviewed on Bookslut. Martyn Pedler says, "His Obama begins as a kind of smug, stoner everyman: telling 'your momma' jokes, discussing old movies with visiting dignitaries . . .  Weissman’s pages -- drawn in ballpoint into a moleskin notebook -- use a four-panel gag structure that makes the book immediately addictive."  

• Review: Publishers Weekly takes on Barack Hussein Obama by Steven Weissman.". . . readers will likely have to be content with being one part giddy and three parts puzzled. . . Perhaps that’s Weissman’s point: that the farce of contemporary politics has the capacity to make one simultaneously giddy, confused, and disenchanted."

• Interview (audio): Speaking of Steven Weissman, Obama and the elections, he is interviewed on KPFK 90.7 FM's show Beneath the Surface. 

• Review: Comics Worth Reading looks at Charlie Brown's Christmas Stocking by Charles Schulz. KC Carlson says, "Charlie Brown’s Christmas Stocking is the perfect stocking stuffer for any Peanuts fan — which is probably most of the planet!"

 

• Review: Booklist Online carves out a place in their hearts for Wallace Wood's Came the Dawn. Ray Olson writes, "This volume presenting all his horror and crime stories chronologically shows him refining what is at first a crude though powerful sense of mise-en-scène into one that is assured, highly detailed, and lightly caricatural."

• Interview: Jim Woodring is interviewed by Peter Bebergal on hippies, hallucinations and all the good stuff that goes into his latest work, Problematic, a skechbook. "I frequently saw things at night — silently jabbering heads at the foot of my bed, distorted animals and objects hanging in the air over me. Often I saw a huge staring eye that made me vomit with fear."

 

• Plug: On Boing-Boing, Mark Frauenfelder tips his digi-hat to Floyd Gottfredson: "Gottfredson's Mickey is a plucky, goodhearted imp, bursting with energy and impulsively eager for adventure. . . [Carl] Barks will always have a special place in my heart, but I've added Gottfredson to my short list of great American cartoonists."

• Review: Page 45 looks at The Lost Art of Ah Pook and Stephen L. Holland ponders "Malcom Mc Neill has taken the time to put this eye-frazzling book of art – some of it sequential – into context, for the work itself is very much lost. . . There are vast scenes of ancient ritual, carnal lust and very modern warfare transcending time just as they were always intended."

• Review: Booklist Online likes Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: Only a Poor Old Man by Carl Barks. Ian Chipman states, "from the bitter cold of the Klondike to the bottom of the Caribbean. . . Barks’ comics are an absolute treasure that have aged remarkably well, and are finally getting wide-scale publication to introduce them to a new generation of readers."

• Review: Gene Ambaum of Unshelved happily views covers from Action! Mystery! Thrills!, edited by Greg Sadowski. "Beautiful full-color reproductions of unblemished comic book covers show the amazing art and the breadth of genres on the newsstands before Fredric Wertham screwed everything up in the 1950s. . . The colors are bright, and the art is just plain fun."

• Review: Comic Book Daily reviews Prince Valiant Volume 2: 1939-1940. Scott VanderPloeg write, "All of it beautifully drawn as only Hal Foster could. Each page is a visual feast that begs to be savoured."

• Review: Rod Lott of Bookgasm spends a long, loooong time checking out Sexytime. "[Editor Jacque Boyreau] has a knack for picking images; much like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and hardcore porn, Boyreau knows it when he sees it. And luckily, he shares it, this time from the visual-presentation experts of Fantagraphics Books — a match made in poster-art heaven."

 

• Interview (audio): One of our favorite creators, Ellen Forney, speaks to KUOW/NPR on bi-polar disorder, comics and her new work, Marbles. 

• Plug: Jaime Hernandez will be at the Copenhagen Comics Fest in Copenhagen, Denmark in June of 2013. Mark them calendars!